Clemson Tigers Deliver Video with Speed

Clemson University is known for its academic excellence and world-class research. The drive and competitive spirit of Clemson students is never so visible than on the playing field where the Clemson Tigers shine. That Tiger spirit helped Clemson overcome the University of Alabama to become the 2017 College Football National Champions. Clemson’s athletic programs bring the campus together and serve as an excellent way to connect with donors and recruits.

In the fast-paced world of sports coverage, speed is key. Content that hits social media during the game, when interest is at its peak, will earn more clicks and views, resulting in greater visibility for the teams and the university. To reach the broadest audience possible, it’s crucial that the Clemson Athletics’ Communications team capture and turn around content quickly.

We previously talked with Jonathan Gantt, Director of New & Creative Media, and Nik Conklin, Coordinator of Digital Content for Clemson Athletics about how they’re using Adobe Creative Cloud for greater content velocity. Using Adobe Creative Cloud, students and staff collaborate through lightning-fast workflows to deliver up to 25 videos per week, a pace that generated 27 million video views across their social channels in 2015. Gantt and Conklin are also co-directors of the Center of Excellence, which pushes the boundaries of innovation and creativity through cutting-edge technologies to all faculty, students, and staff.

Never satisfied with the status quo, Gantt and Conklin have continued to push Clemson’s mobile video production to new heights using Adobe Premiere Clip, a mobile app that makes on-the-go editing not only possible, but accessible to everyone on staff. With 19 teams and 500 student athletes, Adobe Premiere Clip helps the staff cover more ground and still deliver high-quality content.

“Not everyone has the training or equipment to become an expert videographer, but almost everyone owns a mobile device and knows how to use it to capture video,” says Gantt. “Adobe Premiere Clip democratizes film production so that anyone can quickly capture and edit a video right on their phone. We’re very grateful to have the opportunity to involve more people, empower more people, inspire more people and therefore have that many more great stories told.”

As an integrated part of Adobe Creative Cloud, Premiere Clip allows the team to pull in bumpers, watermarks, and branding elements created by graphic designers using Adobe Illustrator CC or Adobe After Effects CC to give the videos a consistent look. Rather than just tweeting out scores, Clemson shares short videos overlaid with a PSD watermark of the current score. The watermark file is updated throughout the game and shared via Creative Cloud so that the social media team never misses a beat.

With Premiere Clip, users have the creative freedom to rearrange and trim clips, add transitions and slo-mo effects, or adjust lighting for a polished look. Built-in parameters help them generate ideas and execute quickly. Staff who are less experienced with video editing need look no further than Automatic mode. With just a few clicks, Premiere Clip will automatically edit together clips and set them to music.

“Premiere Clip isn’t just a standalone tool. It’s integrated with the Creative Cloud set of solutions, which allows us to bring in all of our bumpers, watermarks, and branding elements to help students and staff follow our guidelines and standards while bringing their own creativity to projects,” says Gantt.

Empowered by Premiere Clip, Clemson students and staff are helping to deliver more video content from brand new perspectives. One senior worked the baseball beat as a writer. Even though she had little experience with video, she knew how to use her phone. With Premiere Clip, she started creating video content for the baseball team on her phone that has found a loyal following across social media.

Using a phone helps the Clemson videographers get footage where bulky cameras can’t fit, from tight hallways to the middle of a huddle. “We don’t have the resources to send designated videographers to every event, but Adobe Premiere Clip gives our students and staff the confidence to be bold and creative,” says Gantt. “We can afford to cover more events, both on the field and off. Donors in particular want to see the impact of their donations and how our athletics program is turning students into leaders, whether they’re helping out at a Habitat for Humanity project or attending a professional networking workshop. Recruits get to see the full experience of what it’s like to be a Clemson Tiger and current student-athletes get to have quality content of their activity on and off the field to share with their family and friends.”

Clemson is also starting to use other mobile apps to approach projects in new ways. For a video highlighting a football player, Conklin used Adobe Capture CC to digitize hand-drawn illustrations, which he then animated using After Effects CC. With Adobe Draw CC, he added the player’s signature and freeform lines to give the animation even more of a hand-drawn feel.

“We try to bring a fresh perspective to sports coverage that appeals to everyone from donors to recruits,” says Conklin. “For us, mobile production is one of the answers to that. Adobe Premiere Clip gives us an opportunity to quickly create quality content that is putting Clemson Athletics social channels on the map.”